The City of Waterloo’s food tech strategy might be showing some early returns with the announcement that Sysco Corporation has opened a new sales support centre in a former BlackBerry building on Phillip Street.

Sysco, a Fortune 100 company that generated more than $44 billion in sales in 2013, is recognized as a global leader in selling, marketing and distributing food products to restaurants, hospitals, schools and others involved in meal preparation.

The company has already started operations in the city in June, and more than 60 people have been hired in sales, customer support, administration and management for the new sales centre. The company is taking advantage of the world-class office space on Phillip Street made available by BlackBerry’s ongoing restructuring.

“We saw the potential of technology and food working together and that nobody else was really doing it,” said Coun. Karen Scian, a member of the city’s economic development committee. “The Sysco announcement and the upside potential of its new centre in Waterloo is hugely significant for our community and for the City of Waterloo’s economic development work.

“They are a massive player in the food industry and they are on the ground hiring graduates from Conestoga College and our universities, and are focused on building a local, high-tech talent and business workforce. That’s a dream come true for us.”

The close proximity to local post-secondary schools and Waterloo’s reputation as a high tech hub were also part of the company’s decision to set up shop here.

Jason Kipfer, Canada’s Technology Triangle senior business development officer who was part of the recruiting campaign, said Sysco, which has a major distribution centre located in Woodstock, Ont., was looking at a couple of U.S. jurisdictions for the new Sysco Connect centre but came away impressed by what Waterloo had to offer.

“The technology available complements with a lot of the technology that Sysco Connect is looking to utilize to enhance their service offering to their clients,” he said. “The province also played a critical role during the evaluation portion with some additional funding as well.

“I think the community was also able to respond well to the overall needs of the company and was able to work as a team to pull the opportunity together and give them a level of comfort that they were making a great decision to invest in the region.

“Our close proximity to Woodstock played favourably in that decision too. Sysco Connect was looking to leverage this particular office to support a great number of their sales associates across Ontario and north eastern U.S. ”

CTT and the City of Waterloo are also seeing the move as an endorsement of a food tech strategy both pushed in the last year, including a $200,000 investment by the city, to bring more of this type of business to the region.

“We were brought in early on in the evaluation period where Sysco executives, through site selectors, were evaluating Waterloo Region,” said Kipfer, as the City of Waterloo and CTT issued a joint announcement about the company coming to the city. “We played a critical role of being at their side and moving the opportunity forward and help connect the dots while bringing key local stakeholders to the table to provide value added support.”

Some of the deciding factors that went into the final decision, according to Kipfer, were the access to talent with business skills and the familiarity with new technology, and a strong tech ecosystem.

Adoption of new technology and developing technological supports for the food sector is also seen as a growth area for Waterloo Region and its thriving tech sector.

“We want to reinforce technology as an enabler to bring innovation and support within the food industry,” said Kipfer. “We want to connect with local food processors and producers to try to identify some of the pinch points, and we’ve tried to identify some of the technology and innovations that can not only help and solve local food challenges but to also demonstrate our commitment to technology and the food and beverage processing industry.”

The hope is this announcement leads to more opportunities in connecting with the food sector, which is a major driver of the economy both at home and abroad.

“Canada’s Technology Triangle is part of a pan-regional group that is part of the Ontario Food Cluster which represents Canada’s largest food jurisdiction, and it is one of the top three in North America behind Los Angeles and Chicago,” said Kipfer. “The food industry is Ontario’s No. 1 employer with more than 700,000 jobs including restaurant type businesses, which is a mainstay of Sysco’s client base.

“Waterloo Region has a number of existing food and beverage business that are thriving and doing well including Brick, Pillers and Hostess Frito-Lay to name a few. This is an area that we want to continue to support and bring investment from the food and beverage industry to support continued job creation, innovation and ensure Ontario is on the radar screen globally as a place for investment.”

The new 35,000 square-foot Sysco Connect centre on Phillip Street will hold an official opening in late August.

8 Responses to “Landing a big one”

Someone correct me if I am wrong, but isn’t the building that Sysco is moving into not currently owned by the University of Waterloo?

If that is the case, doesn’t that mean that the city in giving Sysco $200,000 worth of corporate welfare to move into that location and hence will not recoup even 1 penny of that through property taxes since U of W is exempt from property taxes?

“Concerned in Waterloo” … you made a big to do about “facts” in a prior post. Here’s one for you. Universities are only exempt from paying taxes on space used for educational purposes. Look it up. How do I know? I work in accounting at a local university. I know, you probably know more! You know everything!!!!!!

Interestingly enough I did find a document online that clearly states that University residences are tax exempt from property tax. Does living in a residence constitute “educational purposes” in your eyes?

Do we see oversight of this? Does the city regularly ensure that tax free spaces are used solely for education purposes? What qualifies as education purposes? Advertising is a form of education. I have no doubt this is a shady deal.